The second [story of three] is to the effect that the wife of a respectable innkeeper in this town died not long ago, and that at a certain hour the bells of the inn ring mysteriously, and no clue can be heard of the one who rings them. The mysterious bell-ringing began on Saturday night, and lasted, our informant says, for an hour! The bell in the children’s room rang, and in a moment one in the sitting-room, and so it continued, even when the parties were in the room.
By some this is gossipped about as a matter of sober import, but the most incredulous believer we have yet met with declares that one of the children caused the alarm by attaching a string to the bell rope.
Cambria Daily Leader, 14th November 1861.
Mysterious bell-ringing.
A nice little bit of superstition is welcomed by the public; and as the snow-ball method is always set in movement by anything of the kind, the said nice little bit of superstition gets in time to be an undoubted fact, so clear as to be undeniable. There is just such a case now in Merthyr.
At a respectable house, which shall be nameless, on Saturday night last, the servant girl heard the bell in the children’s room ring. She went up-stairs to the room, thinking one of the children wanted something, but to her surprise they were sound asleep. She left the room, and was descending the stairs, when the bell in the little sitting room rang. In she went into the room, but there was no one there.
Coming out, again went the bell in the children’s room; so she marched there once more, thinking some one was playing her a trick, but though every possible place was examined, no one could be found, and while so employed again the sitting-room bell rung!
So matters continued, we are informed, for more than an hour, and no clue could be had to the cause. Believers say that the wife died lately, and hint about troubled spirits. Others suggest rats, and some, of a scientific cast, thinking it possible a ruse is being played by means of an electric battery.
Cardiff Times, 15th November 1861.